


The Man Who Became Jesse

by Mad777Hatter



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Angst and Humor, Extremely slow build, Jesse Mccree - centeric, Let's hope I will update faster this time, Lots of it, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Recall, Slow Build, Smoking, and even slower update
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2019-08-07 15:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16410998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad777Hatter/pseuds/Mad777Hatter
Summary: After his adventure in Dorado with a mysterious hacker named Sombra and meeting a ghost of his previous life, Jesse Mccree contemplates his past and what had led to him to become the man he is today as he tries to figure out the path that stretches ahead of him.(Summary may change in future.)





	1. The Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note:
> 
> First I'd like to thank you for stopping by and spending time reading this story. 
> 
> This is a story is from Jesse McCree's point of view after the recall events and contemplating past decisions that had lead to the fall and dissembling Overwatch. The narrative might not be reliable at times due to the biased views of the character. It might contain certain relationships or not, depending on the response of the fans. It will be a slow build, gradual character growth and a journey to self discovery.
> 
> Some notes before we continue: 
> 
> This story is an attempt of practice to improve my English (since it's not my first language) and enhance my creative writing as a whole. Therefore, obviously, it's a free piece of media.
> 
> The audience targeted by this piece are preferably adults for the possible future mentions of violence and traumatic accidents. If you read this, you have agreed that you're an adult and I will treat you as such.
> 
> Last but not least, this is a fan work. The Overwatch characters belong to blizzard entertainment. 
> 
> Enjoy!

 The wind was whistling loudly in his ears as air around him was moving faster than half speed of sound. He watched as the scenery flied past him in a blurry landscape, sky and earth fading into one another, you could not tell where one started and where the other ended. A world without border, the twilight zone. A place for people like him, where there was no solid black or solid white, but different shades of grey.

The wounds on his arm and side stung viciously, annoying him to no end. He chewed his cigar more roughly than he intended, causing a sharp taste of tobacco and cinnamon burst across his tongue. The taste brought a sense of nostalgia, fresh cinnamon biscuits that were given to him by faceless, smiling specters. The memory made his heart ache, bringing the strong sense of a longing. Longing for what? He did not know.

He fishes out his lighter, flickering it once, twice, three times. He growls when the damn thing doesn’t light up. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to quell his frustration, smoothly and slowly letting it out. He opens them gently, looking ahead at the cabin roof in front of him. What was he doing here? Who was he? Was anything that he was experiencing real?

He huffs, trying to focus back. “Stick to facts.” He mumbles quietly.

He was on top of a hyper train.

He was traveling to Los Angeles to smuggle his way out to España.

His name was Jesse McCree, an outlaw with sixty million dollars on his head.

He tries to work the lighter up again. The wretched thing finally works and lights up his cigar. He takes a hearty inhale, letting the smoke burn down his throat, filling his lungs with the acidic air. He holds it there for a while, then gently lets it out in a soft sigh. He watches how the smoke dissipates in a flash when it rises to the blowing air above the train. No shapes for him to muse, just the harsh blowing reality.

The train was beginning to slow down, signalling that he was close to his destination. He gets up, holding his Stetson hat in the blowing wind. He hisses as his arm flares with a harsh pain. He grits his teeth, trying to ignored it. He scans the surrounding carefully, looking for a purchase to hold on to. Nearby the train, there’s a ruin left of the Omnic crisis, scraps of metal, beams that are barely holding on together. He secures his travelling bag, and starts running on top of then train like a mad man. He uses his metallic prosthetic arm to latch on a leftover of the industrial building. He feels the vertigo hitting him hard as the train kept moving under the tip of his toes with the brutal speed. He swallowed thickly, holding onto the piece of junk like his life depended on it. After the last car of the train moves past him, he slowly relaxes to release his death grip and jumping down on the ground. A new flare of hot white pain crashes his midsection and he double over, swearing colourfully. Luckily, no one was around and he could afford sounding less than the gentleman he always tries to be.

Slowly, he stands on his feet and starts moving into the wilderness to a destination he had never thought he would ever go to. His heart aches again, the longing is stronger. He keeps lying to himself, pretending to not know what his hollow heart yearns for. Ignorance is a bliss, it’s a fact he was taught by the life he was leading so far. The less you know, the less your _pretend_ to know, the easier the life is, the easier it is to move on.

The sun is unforgiving, the light is enough to burn his skin were it not for his hat and serape. Still, it doesn’t immune him from the heat. Sweat pours out of his body, dripping from his brow on the ground, moving into his wounds, causing an unpleasant sting to spread throughout his body. He feels tired to the very bone, dragging his feet slowly across the dirt. It’s not like he’s not used to the heat, he spent the last few years either haunting targets here, or running away from becoming one. Still, the heat is always a nuisance, always. He hears the vultures circling around his head, he muses they are singing ominous songs in a ritual calling for his death. He sees the heat moving up from the ground, dancing upwards in harmony with the calls of predators above him, creating false images of some little heaven he would never reach. He moves past a mirage after mirage until he gets to his secret cache. He opens the door and closes it, leaning against it and slowly sliding down.

A choked voice makes its way out of his throat and he quickly stifle it, glaring at a dead rat in the corner of the room as if it was its fault that he couldn’t get a grip on himself. He takes a deep breath, the air is stale and too thin, the warmth is suffocating. If anything, his cigar is making it worse, yet it doesn’t stop him from taking another whiff. Smoke fill his airways, burning all the way down. The pain causes him relief, makes him forget the ache in his soul. He stares blankly at the wall across him, thinking how it all started to go wrong. Was it the bullet fired in Rialto? Was it the recruitment of a mad geneticist that Overwatch ditched? Or maybe was it the sting operation in Deadlock gorge, where the Blackwatch commander gave a scruffy boy an option? The first recruitment of a bloody handed criminal?

“Die” or “Live”. He thought he was onto something when he picked “Live”. Now he wishes he picked the former option, at least that way he wouldn’t be sitting in a ratty cottage in middle of a nowhere, contemplating everything he did in his life. He wouldn’t witness things that brought him a bottomless despair, wouldn’t feel a disappointment so deep he would lose any remaining faith in humanity. He picks his handset, looking at the message that popped up months ago. He didn’t have the heart to delete it, but he always ignored it when it popped up first thing whenever he used his device. It stares back at him, waiting for him to take an action.

ANSWER OVERWATCH RECALL?

Y                 N

He realizes, with a bitter irony, that he was presented with a set of options again: “Yes” and “No”. The thought made him so angry he wanted to throw his handset against the wall and feel the satisfaction of watching it shatter to smaller pieces. He was so sick of double options. Either “Yes” or “No”, “Live” or “Die”, “White” or “Black”. He was hardly anything pure. He wasn’t bad enough to be black, he wasn’t good enough to be white. He was both and neither. He wanted to die in agony that day and live with a hope of a better future. He didn’t want to answer the recall, but he wanted to help them fix the problems he had some role in creating. Why he never got a third option?

He growls and stumps his cigar. It was agitating him more than relaxing him. He threw it aside, not caring where it ended up. He had a med kit here somewhere and he needed to patch up quickly before infection set in. He gets on his legs, leaving his bag on the floor and drags himself to the small partition which was supposed to be a bathroom. He digs into the cabinet and finds the med kit with a year worth of dust settles on top of it. He moves it away from his face and blows the dust away, ends up coughing anyway despite his precaution. He opens it and checks the contents inside. There was a small biotic emitter (great), sterile gauze (very good), no disinfectant (he could use his whiskey), no anesthetic (he could drink the whiskey), couple of pain killers and nanite pills. He could make it work. He survived with a worse injury and far less supplies.

He goes and sets the kit down on the chair at the corner of the room. He takes off his serape and then his shirt. His eyes catch the logo of Blackwatch and his surname on the sleeve of his compression t-shirt, reflected at him from the dusty cracked mirror on the wall. He purses his lips. He still doesn’t know why he kept it. Practicality and quality of the shirt? Or maybe it was the pang of sentiment that he couldn’t quite shake off? He shakes his head, clearing his thought and takes off the offending garment. He inspects his injuries on the mirror. Small wounds where the pellets embedded themselves in his flesh. He was an idiot, he was slow and he hesitated. He was supposed to know better, he could _do_ better. No point in beating himself about it now.

He sits down on the floor and opens his flask, taking a big gulp of the whiskey, closing his eyes as it burns its way down, leaving a fiery trail that starts to make a pleasant buzz spread throughout his body. He pours some on the tweezers he plans to use to extract the pellets. He uses his lighter to make sure it’s fully sterile. He then sets both the lighter and the flask down and picking the tweezers more securely, taking a deep breath before he starts probing for the first pellet. He bites his lips to stifle the scream, despite knowing there was no one in miles around him. He breathes harshly through his nose, dropping the first steel ball on the dusty floor. He picks the flask again, dreading the next part. He pours some on the freshly opened wound and whimpers as the pain intensifies, causing tears to fall from his screwed shut eyes. The pain is agonizing, but this is only the start and he has more to go through.

He leans his head against the wall behind him after taking out the sixth. He can’t do it anymore. It hurts far too much, and he never was fond of pain. He furiously scrubs his face to get rid of the tears that had fallen some time during the extraction of the torturous pellets. His metallic fingers were twitching after being pressed into a delicate work. The thing has seen better days and the occasional malfunctions were mainly his fault for not taking a better care of it. He was kind of used to it now, after how long has it been? 4 years? Possibly. It intensified the sense of agitation he was going through. Usually, he would distract himself by talking to people around him, but now that he was alone, no living soul lived any place near.

Well, if talking wouldn’t work, there was always singing. He hadn’t sung in a long time, only doing it when he was exceptionally joyous or incredibly in despair. He smiles sadly when he remembers the good old days where they gathered around in the commune area, he would play a song on guitar, buttering up his voice to see ladies swoon around him, singing along with-

With-

 

_“Aren't you ashamed that you can't speak a single word of Spanish?” He chuckles as he looks at his commander._

_“I can understand it just fine, kid.” The man huffs, rolling his eyes._

_“I’ll teach ya, if you want. For free, I promise.” He winks with a wide grin_

 

_“There’s no one I ’d rather sing along with, your voice fits juuuuuust right.” The man looks at him with mischief shining brightly in his eyes. He shakes his head, too amused by his commanding officer antics._

_“You only want me to tag along to rile up Morrison, jefe.”_

 

_“Get out.” He hears the words, feeling his heart drop to his stomach._

 

_“How’s abuelita? She didn’t look very good when we last saw her.” He asks when Reyes finished the phone call home. He loved that woman, and it pained him to see her in pain._

_“Mama thinks abuela doesn’t have long to live.” Reyes says quietly as he stares at the wall in front of him. He felt a lump in his throat, eyes burning with tears unshed, hiding his face under his hat._

 

_“A six shooter?” He looks shocked at Gabriel, a disbelieving smile appearing on his face._

_“Couldn’t let your dream of becoming a cowboy turn to dust, now could I?” Gabriel teases him and ruffles his hair._

 

_“GET OUT.” His voice reverberates in the room, looking at him with an unmatched rage. His heart was churning in his chest. Gabriel never looked at him like that._

 

_“Are you sure you’re OK? It’s just... you’re not acting like yourself in some time.” He asks casually, knowing how Gabe hated people being concerned about him._

_“Nothing is wrong with me, vaquero.” He said drily, blowing out the smoke in the freezing air._

 

_“This is for Fareeha's birthday, for becoming an official adult that can indulge in the grown-up vices!” He dropped his arm around the girl he considered closer than a friend, his little sister. She giggled, cheeks going slightly pink from the attention she was getting_

_“Jesse McCree! I would haunt you down if you put ideas in my daughter's head!” Ana glares at him with disapproval, and dear lord did she look terrifying. She was always the scary mama bear._

_“Relax Ana, he still sleeps with his teddy.” Gabe teased, grinning from the corner of the room. He feels a blush rushing up to his face._

_“Reyes!”_

 

“GET OUT!” _Gabe slams his hands to the table, his voice rising slightly, the hatred in his eyes intensifies. He takes an involuntary step back._

 

_“I don’t trust her. I don’t know why you keep her around. She’s bad news, I just know!” He was desperate to make Gabe see. O’Deorain was everything wrong stood for. He never trusted her._

_“Too bad you don’t get a say in this, Jesse.” Gabe snarled at him, closing the door to his face._

 

_“What were you thinking?! Shooting that asshole wasn’t what we planned for!” He was angry and frustrated. He didn’t give a damn about being suspended, Gabe was taking the full blame and Morrison was butchering him alive for it. He hated it, he hated seeing Gabe under fire like this._

_“This isn’t the first time we improvised,_ McCree _. You do your fair share of improvising on the field.” Gabe hisses angrily, glaring at him from across the table._

_“I ask you before I do it! I always ask you, making sure it’s met with approval.” He throws his hands up in frustration. All of this was messed up on so many levels he had no idea where to begin._

_“Yes, because I’m your commander. Do you expect me to ask my_ second in command _?! Do you think_ you _know better?!” Gabe walks from around the table and shoves his finger to his chest. For the first time in a long while he feels that Gabe was looking down on him instead of thinking of him as an equal._

 

“GET OUT!” _He flinches from the loud shout. He nods silently, and turns on his heels to leave the room, the Watchpoint, Blackwatch, Overwatch as a whole. This was no longer his place._

 

 _“What’s with the pale face? You look like you’ve seen a_ ghost _.” The gravely dead voice speaks with a cruel amusement and he can’t help but to stare at what happened to the face of the man he held close to his heart._

He breathes frantically, rubbing his face. He hated it when this happened, memories rushed in, leaving him in a hollow ache that panned through his heart. He wets his lips with his tongue, looking at the dusty wall him front of him. He should stop thinking, it only brings more pain. His lips start to move unconsciously, in a soft whisper, singing an old melody.

 

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a partner,

Sometimes I feel like my only friend,

Is the city I live in, the of angles,

Lonely as I am, together we cry.”

 

He tightens his grip on the tweezers and sets on taking out the rest of the pellets, never stopping the quiet murmur of the song.

 

“I drive on her streets cause she’s my companion

I walk through her hills cause she knows who I am,

She sees my good deeds and kisses me windy,

I never worry, now that is a lie.”

 

He snorts, smirking at the accuracy. Not worrying is a luxury he lost ever since that day he stepped out of the watch point and never looked back. He still wonders, some nights as he lies awake, how would everything end up if he stayed? Would it go differently? Would everything go all the same regardless? He drops the ninth pellet and shakes his head. There is no point thinking about that anymore. He keeps the low singing to keep himself busy.

 

“I don’t ever want to feel, like I did that day,

Take me to the place I love, take me all the way,

I don’t ever want to feel, like I did that day,

Take me to the place I love, take me all the way.

Yeah, yeah...”

 

He blinks lazily as he takes another gulp of whiskey. The pain was still there, but he couldn’t afford to risk his motor skills since the process was incredibly delicate. He takes out the tenth pellet with a whimper. It hurt so much and the pain just flared more as he disinfect it with whiskey. He lights a cigarette again, smoking to distract himself. He keeps singing, louder this time. The room's eerie silence was digging at his soul and he needed something to break it or had choke on it.

 

“It’s hard to believe that there's nobody out there,

It’s hard to believe that I’m all alone,

At least I have her love, the city she loves me,

Lonely as I am, together we cry.”

 

He holds the tweezers with a new found determination and digs for the rest of the annoying pellets, and takes three more insistently and lets out a sigh of relief when he gets rid of them all. He cleans his rest of his wounds and starts dressing them. He pops open the biotic emitter and turns it on, letting the warm yellow light embrace him and slowly but surely cure his injuries. He looks at the tiny steely balls which were spread around the med kit. He starts counting them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, the, eleven, twelve, thirteen.

He starts laughing, loud and hollow. He laughs hard enough that tears start pickling his eyes, a few drops slipping past his lashes and dropping on his cheeks. Thirteen.

“Edgy asshole.” He shakes his head, probing his chin on his knees. Of course there would be thirteen. Even if it was a coincidence, the fucking edge lord had a way of making things work this way. He chewed at the cigar thoughtfully as he watched the smoke dance upwards. He picked his flask and drowned all the whiskey that was left. If he wanted to wait until the emitter did its work, he’d rather not to be sober for it. Maybe he should delay his traveling time a bit, going to a bar downtown, getting wasted. What better way than to cope with a problem? What better way to deal with a ghost haunting him from the past?

The glow of the emitter started to faint after half an hour, and by then the sun was slowly setting, filling the small room with an orange hue. He gets up, feeling no remaining pain, but the burden on his shoulder somehow felt twice as heavy. He dresses back up, putting on his hat and serape. He picks his bag, opening the door and got out of the cursed room. He might come back to restock it, probably not. What’s the point of coming back to a place where memories would attack him? He walked towards the city slowly, humming the song under his breath, letting his mind drift as the sun set completely and the sky went dark.

 

“Under the bridge downtown,”

 

_He was waiting outside of Lumerico, knowing that he’d show up. If his assumptions were right, which mostly were, the girl was working with him. He stood patiently, his eyes scanning the horizon._

 

“Is where I drew some blood,”

 

_He should have seen it coming. He was able to dodge the most of it, but still he felt some of the pellets embedded themselves in his flesh. He rolls away, standing on his feet, looking at the figure in front of him. He stood there, tall, menacing, clad in black. The bone white mask reminded him of the division he always belonged to, Blackwatch._

“Under the bridge downtown,”

 

_“Knew you’d show up.” He says with a dry laugh. “things don’t get done unless you do something about it. Same old, same old, Right Reaper?”_

_The man says nothing, disturbingly still, as if he wasn’t even breathing._

_“Or should I say, Gabriel Reyes?”_

“I could not get enough,”

 

_The man was still silent, regarding him from under the mask._

_“You look ridiculous.”_

_Of course, that was the first thing he would comment on. God forbid he’d comment on how things went, why he did the things he did, why he was working with people he fought against in the first place. No, he just had to put his finger on the way he dressed._

_“Looked in a mirror lately?”_

“Under the bridge downtown,”

 

_The man had audacity to scoff at him. He walks forward, steps feeling off, too motionless, dead. He raises his shotgun, aiming the all too familiar weapon at him. Never had he thought he would end up here, with that gun pointed at him, with that man fighting on the other side. Despite his blank face, he ached. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want it._

 

“Forgot about my love,”

 

_“Why?” he says in a hushed whisper, hoping the man in front of him to provide an answer. Any answer._

_“You know why. You left me.” His voice was wrong, too flat, too mechanical. Everything was wrong with him. He wasn’t the Gabriel he knew, the man he looked up to, the man he immensely admired._

_“Whose fault was that, Reyes?!” He shouts loudly. “You pushed me away!”_

 

“Under the bridge downtown,”

 

_The man seemed to absorb his outburst. “You have a chance go join me now.”_

_He chuckles at the absurdity of the situation, shaking his head._

_“No.”_

_“No?” The man tilts his head, and he feels like a small rodent, being watched by an owl to be haunted._

_“No. Unlike what you believed, I’m not an ingrate. I live to be a better man to make up for what I did in the past. You taught me that.”_

_The man laughs, it’s too hollow, too emotionless._

_“You are always an ingrate, Jesse.” He gently puts pressure on the trigger._

 

“I gave my life away.”

 

_“Adiós, zorro.” He pulls the trigger._


	2. Starry Night

Somewhere along the way Jesse stops walking. His arm doesn’t hurt anymore and the world is no longer a blurred image of uncertainty. He looks around, glancing at the desert spreading around him, tumbleweeds decorating the empty expanse here and there. He blinks, suddenly feeling as if coming back online, the world turning sharp into focus again. He hears the faint sound of the wind blowing gently, making a chill to go up his spine. It was cold, and his serape wasn’t doing anything to prevent it from reaching him. He looks around methodically and picks the dried tumbleweeds he finds around him, gathering some of them in a pile. He opens his bag, tears open a paper from a ratty notebook he kept there to keep tabs on his bounties. He places the paper on the pile of tumbleweeds and sets it on fire with his lighter. The fire spreads quickly, a small crackling breaking the silence every now and then.

The numbness he felt after the encounter was dissipated, and the acrid taste of reality finally punches him in the gut. It’s ridiculous, really. He knew. He knew that Reaper was Reyes once he looked deeply into his affairs. The similarity was uncanny, the way the mercenary fought, the way he held himself, the weapon of choice. Jesse knew, but he kept himself in denial, lying to himself that it was a high-quality clone that Talon managed to pull off, that it was a genetical monster, anything, just not _that._

Just not _him_.

He screws his eyes shot as he remembers the face, feels the excruciating pain that the memories brought up. The memories of Gabriel’s face off was still crystal clear. The little taunts and teasing, the way Reyes spoke to him as he shot him. It was just like another training simulator, the old ones which they did back in Blackwatch. They used to banter and joke as they shot each other, the entire thing was a game they both loved to play. This, however; wasn’t one of those old games, despite how familiar it felt to it. Reyes wanted him dead, and Jesse wanted to kill him off too. The jokes weren’t friendly, they were cruel, adding slat too the wounds of betrayal. The teasing and the banter weren’t good natured, they were hostile and toxic. The more he remembers the more he feels a hot pit in his stomach starting to boil. Anger starts to course hot through his veins.

 _“Are you a worthy man now,_ Jesse _?”_

Those words suddenly flare the hidden anger inside him, feeding it until it consumes him whole. He kicks some of the rocks on the floor causing up a pile of dust to rise.

“Fuck you, Reyes! Fuck you!” He growls and shouts angrily. There’s no one around to reprimand him, not a single living soul until miles and miles away. He yearns for something to break, to feel it shatter in front of his eyes and hear the satisfying noise it would cause. He opens his bag and pulls out a small bourbon bottle and flips it open, drinking the entire thing in one go. It burns his throat as it goes down and he feels a raw energy filling him as he shatters the glass bottle against the ground, kicking and hitting until there’s nothing left but a fine dust of glass. He pants, taking big gulps of air. The world spins around him and he has to sit down. He falls next to the fire, feeling dizzy and disoriented. He shouldn’t have drunk like that. It was a foolish decision and he was already regretting it.

“Asshole.” He mutters weakly against the dirt, feeling strangely childish as tears start prickling his eyes. A ragged sob escapes his lips, he hides his face into his arms. He shouldn’t have drunk like that, it messed up all his grip on his sanity. Once the tears start falling onto his cheeks, they don’t seem to stop. He didn’t let himself mourn Gabe’s death, he didn’t let himself mourn losing friends, and he didn’t let himself mourn losing his arm. No wonder they caught up with him when he was at his lowest. He was an emotional drunk, Gabe- Reyes always teased him about it. He sighs and rolls on his back, laying his head on his bag. He watches the stars as they blur and swirl into one another as tears keep falling from his eyes. Huh. He guesses that man who painted those swirly stars painting was a pretty sad bastard. That painting made sense now that he was looking at the sky with teary eyes. He closes his eyes, stops caring about the tears and lets the exhaustion to consume him. Maybe he’d finally get some round of sleep after couple of uneasy nights. He stares blankly to the sky, letting his thoughts to sour without a reservation.

His thoughts go back to when he first saw the news of the explosion on the tv. He didn’t feel the tumbler of whiskey slipping from his fingers and fall on the ground with a loud noise as he stared in shock at the words which messed up his entire world.

_Confirmed Dead: Strike Commander Jack Morrison, Commander Gabriel Reyes._

He didn’t care about any other name back then, he didn’t even care about Morrison, that guy had it coming. But Gabe, Gabe was dead. His memories were in a blur for a month as he lived in constant shock; until he abandons everything (gears, clothes, heck even his partner) and rushes to the funeral made for the two. He doesn’t participate in the entire thing, just watches from afar, waiting for everyone to go. He visits Gabriel’s grave, he doesn’t cry, doesn’t say anything. He just watches the grave stone, not quite believing what happened, no quite believing the Gabriel Reyes was contained by the grave. He leaves flowers, white lilies. It becomes his tradition. The first year he visits every month, bringing flowers of different kinds. He starts talking after the fifth visit, whispering anguished words and sharing his regrets with the stone grave. Later, he visits the grave yearly, the flowers were his only company. He avoids people, his friendly façade was a hollow act to appear normal. He didn’t need to let anyone else inside anymore. He didn’t think he could take another broken heart.

Now, in hindsight, everything he did was pointless. Reyes was around the world mass murdering and terrorising people while he was sitting down and wallowing in misery of his loss. The flowers were for nothing, he bared his soul for an empty grave. His heart was broken again despite how closely he guarded it in the recent years. He felt guilt, went through grief, drunk himself to a coma all for nothing.

Nothing.

The revelation leaves a bad taste in his mouth, although, it could have been the stale flavour of the alcohol. He can’t sleep. He is exhausted to his very bone marrows but sleep still proves to be elusive as ever. Well, so much for a drunken sleep. He had things to do, for example getting the chip data information he got from the girl to the newly recalled Overwatch. His brows scrunch up in a grimace. He got the message from the monkey, but it was obvious no one would join the group again, at least he knows that he won’t. He sent a message of good will through Echo, but that’s as far as he would go. He’s really not looking forward to go Spain and smuggle his way to Gibraltar just to meet them. He had a bounty, for God’s sake, travelling like a commoner was out of question unless he played some of the good old tricks. Gabe taught him the best technics to hide in plain sight, to blend with people as if he belonged there.

He should stop thinking about the man. It has no use for him whatsoever.

He rubs his face, feeling antsy. He wouldn’t mind to pick up a fight, feeling his fist hitting someone and feeling some pain in return, just to get a grasp on his rebellious mind. Fighting always had a good source of distraction for him. Not the best coping mechanism, but he didn’t mind. Tragically, he was in the middle of the desert, somewhere along Route 66, with no one around to fight. Even the Deadlocks were far away, not that he would start a fight with them. Last time he pissed Ashe enough to have his face plastered on every wall all around Santa Fe. Better not stir that hornet nest again. He still remembers her screaming in frustration. Gabe would have been proud of the stunt he pulled, he always loved clever tricks and pranks.

He _really_ should stop thinking about him.

_“Miss me, vaquero?”_

He rubs his face angrily and growls under his breath. Logic. He needed to logic this out. He took a breath and started to count the facts he knew.

One, Reyes was alive. (As alive a moving corpse could be, anyway.)

Two, Reyes was a terrorist and a criminal, part of the Talon organization. (The organization he fought against. The organization he wanted to bring down. What the fuck was he doing with them?!)

Three, Reyes was adamant about killing agents of Overwatch for revenge. They should be warned. (Should they really be? Yes, some of them were good people. Not all of them though. He wouldn’t miss them if they die.)

Four, there was a planned terrorist attack on Busan to steal a secret project the MEKA industry have been working on, scheduled to be in time with the Kishin’s attacked. They would use the hostile Omnics as a diversion to achieve their goal.

Five, he doesn’t have to go all the way to Spain to tell the newly recalled Overwatch what was happening. He could go straight to South Korea and inform his former colleagues about the Talon’s plan through the comm.

The fifth idea causes his eyes to widen. It was as if he just realised that he wasn’t obliged to go and report back like back in the days. He was no longer an agent under the management of authoritative forces. He was his own man, he could do whatever the hell he wanted to. The idea causes a bubble of joy to burst inside him and he starts laughing loudly. Distantly he knew if anyone saw him, they would rule him out as insane. If insanity was the price of freedom, he wouldn’t mind at all. He sets his mind, he no longer has to go to Gibraltar. But he had to go to Busan, and that could be easily arranged. It’s not something he hadn’t done before, after all. Just another undercover work, with disguises and all. Those were fun. He opens his bag and checks for his fake IDs to see what he could come up with. He reads over a couple of them until he finds one that fits just right. Jake Monroe. A married man with 2.5 children and picket fences, working as a U.S. pilot for international flights. He smirks, he could already form a plan to get into a plane as a pilot and he was punched drunk. He hadn’t lost his touch yet.

He grins and lies back down on the ground. The world was still fuzzy around the edges, his vision swimming with the alcohol in his system. He stares at the stars and tried to make out the constellations he saw up there. He was always fond of stars and watching them late at night. He used to do it when he was much younger, he stopped for awhile when he got to know Ashe, since she lacked the patience and she didn’t appreciate things that didn’t bring her power or money. He got back to that hobby when he joined Overwatch, often sneaking up the roof top just to watch the sky at night time. Gabriel was a star gazer too, and it was one of the first few things that got them bonding despite their rocky start. Gabe taught him more than the shapes of constellations. He taught him how to use them to survive in the middle of nowhere. It was more often than not that they would sit somewhere remote, away from everyone else, share a drink or smoke and talk about everything and nothing.

He couldn’t stop thinking about him, and each memory hurt more than the last.

He curls up into a ball, lying on his side and hugging his knees. It was partially because of the cold, but it was also because he felt so lost. He finds himself craving human contact and comfort after years of keeping everyone within an arm reach. He still wasn’t ready to let anyone in, though; which only added fuel to his dilemma. He laughs humourlessly, feeling completely pathetic. Why did he have to do that? Why? That wasn’t Gabriel, at least not the one he knew deep down. That was something Reyes starting to become after the whole Rialto fiasco. His Gabriel wouldn’t betray his own, his Gabriel wouldn’t throw away his beliefs and join Talon.

His Gabriel wouldn’t start shooting him on sight.

The tears stung his eyes again, but he holds them back. he can’t shake the memories off, he can’t shake _him_ off. It wasn’t just the Talon affair. It was much deeper and more messed up than that. Reaper wasn’t a new face in the whole crisis. Reaper didn’t show up by Talon, in fact, he was there before Talon even become an actual threat.

Reaper was out there at the time he was recruited by Gabriel.

He studied every operation Reaper was part of and checked the times Gabe would leave the watchpoints for solo missions, and they matched with a frightening accuracy. He didn’t want to believe it at first, he wanted to believe that Gabe wouldn’t do that. But it was Gabe who taught him to look into every possibility that had facts to support it. Gabe’s morality was mostly questionable and he was a megalomaniac to some extent. Was it possible that he thought he was fixing the world this way? It was. Was it possible that everything he knew about Gabe was just a pretty façade and he was just a psychopath who got off _saving the world_ because it sated his violent tendencies? A bit far-fetched but not so far from the truth. He wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

He tries to take calming breaths and getting some control back. he needs a distraction, something to set up his mind at. He could try and call the recalled Overwatch and give them the information he had. He doesn’t look forward to talk to anyone of them. It’s not that he hates them or anything, he’s just not looking forward to see anyone Overwatch related for now. It was inevitable, though, and he had to contact them sooner rather than later. Better rip off the bandage. He lights up another cigar. He lost the count of how many he smoked so far. It’s a bad habit, but he can’t find it in himself to give it up yet. It was comforting and the best balm for his constantly frayed nerves. He picks his comm device from his bag and looks for the contact information of Athena in Gibraltar watchpoint. He stares at the button, still contemplating whether or not should he press call. He should, there are lives at stake and he won’t let his anguish to cause death of thousands, if not millions.  He presses call, hoping that Athena still recognised his contact information. The line connects, and there’s an eerie silence which makes him hold his breath. After a long moment of silent he hears her tentative voice.

“Agent McCree? Is that you?” he sighs in relief, chuckling softly. She recognised him still.

“Howdy Athena. It’s been a long time since I heard your beautiful voice, darling.”

“Always the charmer, Agent McCree. How may I assist you?” The smooth synthetic voice of Athena stirs some strange longing in his heart. Her tone was amused and Jesse never realised how they managed to make her so expressive despite her just being an A.I. voice.

“Can you put me through to talk with the monkey?”

“I would advise you not to call him that, it upsets him a great deal.” She scolded him gently. He rolls his eyes, feeling some of his good spirit coming back.

“Yeah, yeah… what was his name again?” It had something to do ‘W’. William? Wilbert? There was a soft synthetic laugh and he knew if Athena had a body, she would be shaking her head at him now.

“I’ll connect you to _agent Winston_ immediately.” Ah! Winston, right. He’d better remember that until the end of the call, at least. He can go back to forgetting his name once the job was done. He had no plan to linger afterwards.

“Hello?” The gruff voice of Winston greeted him.

“Hey there big guy. It’s been a while.” He says pleasantly, rolling his cigar between his forefinger and thumb.

“McCree? I thought Athena was joking when she said it was you.” He sounds surprised. “You never answered the recall.”

He sighs, his lips twisting in a grimace. “No, I didn’t. You know how it is.”

“Do I?” Winston’s tone is dry and nonplussed. It’s a refreshing change, since the monkey always stammers like an idiot.

“Well, a guy’s gotta keep busy. I’d _love_ to join, but my schedule is tight.” He keeps his tone light, although not too light. He never was incredibly friendly with Winston, in fact they rarely talked to each other since they belonged to different divisions. He didn’t want to start an awkward friendship with a monkey of all things.

“Busy enough to collect a bounty of 60 million, as it seems. Let’s see, wanted for murder, theft, hyper train abduction?” There’s a pause and he can assume that the nosy gorilla is looking deeper into his affairs. One of the main reasons that he doesn’t want to join overwatch: They are all nosy and gossiping lots. “Dear God, McCree… what have you been up to?”

He chuckles dryly, since he has no idea what to respond. He takes a deep inhale of the smoke to calm his fraying nerves. “Well, I guess I’m the most convenient guy to get the blames.” He shrugs, then he feels foolish since the monkey wasn’t around to see him.

“Well, the hyper train abduction doesn’t add up. I read more reports and it mentions there was a possible Talon involvement?”

“Yup.”

“The police didn’t seem to care to the witness statements. They all insist that you were innocent and you helped them.” He sounds bitter. “You saved those people, but the police threw the blame on you.” He sounded angry.

“No need to sweat it big guy. It ain’t the first time, nor will it be the last. Anyway, I called because I got an important piece of intel. I know where Talon wants to strike next time.” He changes the subject quickly before the monkey gets all Morrison on him. He really wasn’t in the mood for that.

“What, really?” Winston sounded pleasantly surprised. “Is it a reliable intel?” He almost sounded giddy with anticipation. It seemed that the monkey meant business after all, and recalling Overwatch wasn’t just a spur in a moment reaction.

“Yeah. Snatched it from one of their operatives. Does the name Sombra Collective ring any bells?” The displeased growl from Winston hardly surprises him, but he jumps when he hears a high pitch voice suddenly screaming in his ears.

“That absolute criminal! She stole Winston’s translocator and acts as if she owns it!” Once the ringing dissipated a bit from his ears, he recognised agent Tracer’s voice. She always had that high pitch and energetic voice, and listening to it as she screamed in his ears wasn’t exactly friendly to his ears. He shouldn’t be surprised that she had answered the recall, she and the monkey were good friends and she owed him her life. He clears his throat.

“Hello miss Tracer.” He greets her a little too dryly. He tries to smooth things a bit. “How are you? How is the lovely miss Emily?”

“Oh sorry! Where are my manners! Hello McCree!” Her dark mood changes like a snap of the finger and Jesse swallows uneasily, not really prepared for her jubilant personality. “You’re such a sweetheart! Emily is doing great! She’s a bit worried though, what with the recall and what’s about to come, but hey! We are doing great and she’s cheering me from home! I’m so happy you decided to call, are you going to join too? It will be great if you do! They might listen more if- “

Winston is wise enough to pointedly clear his throat and put an abrupt stop to her monologue. Jesse decides that he likes the monkey a little more just for that. There’s a nervous giggle and he hears them shuffling and Winston clicking away on the keyboard while Tracer tries to apologise in a quieter voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry love. You know how excited I can get! Didn’t mean to overwhelm you. How are you doing McCree?”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m mighty fine, thanks for asking.” He keeps his tone light as he lies to his teeth. “About the info. I’ll be sending the data right away- “

“McCree, wait.” Winston interrupts him. “You said you got it from Sombra collective, there’s a possibility that the data is corrupted with some kind of virus. Can you give us the data orally? Talon tried to hack Athena once and I rather not risk that again.” Jesse blinks in surprise and starts feeling some kind of a begrudging respect towards the monkey. He was already capturing what he was supposed to do and what he should watch for. Far better than Morrison on that regard, at the very least. Then again, he might be biased. Morrison and him didn’t usually see eye to eye.

“Alright, so the last time I checked the data, the operation is located in South Korea. Busan, to be more specific.”

Winston makes a confused noise. “But that doesn’t make sense, they have the MEKA squad there, it’s well protected,” He says thoughtfully “Unless…”

“Unless it is in time with the Gwishin’s attack, which it is. Sombra has the schedule planned for the attacks on the Busan and Talon plans to initiate their attack simultaneously.” He takes another inhale of the cigar, his head felt clearer now as he was slowly sobering up.

“I will inform the Korean government about this development immediately so they can prepare for the attack.”

“Wait, you’re not planning to let them handle it alone, are you?” He says incredulously.

“They can handle it on their own, they have the MEKA machines which- “

“They can’t do it on their own! The Gwishin attack would be intensive enough for them to be overwhelmed with it!” and here he thought the Monkey was doing great. Shouldn’t have had any high hopes for this organisation, it was doomed all the way.

“Their main pilot, D.va, she handled the Gwishin attack on her own, surely they can manage?” He sounds unsure and Jesse is tempted to hang up the phone call and go handle the situation himself. He takes a very long intake of smoke instead.

“She blew her mech to smithereens, _Winston_. _Desperate measures!_ Talon _knows_ I got the information, they won’t send a regular troop. They’ll send the golden trio to handle the situation, and we’d be very lucky if they didn’t send any engineered soldiers.” He growls in frustration. “What’s _the point_ of recalling Overwatch if you are not going to help them?!”

“McCree… we’re short in staff.” He mumbles awkwardly. Jesse sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose, of course that would be the problem.

“No one answered the recall?”

“Reinhardt and Brigette have expressed interest and said that they would arrive as soon as possible, Torbjörn would follow after them, if we are lucky.” He explains briefly

“Well that’s good! When will they arrive?”

“We… do not know.”

“What- they can’t be taking so long, I mean they won’t come on foot, right?” the silence he was faced with told him the situation loud and clear and he felt a strong urge to slam his head against the nearest flat surface. “What about Genji? Weren’t you guys chummed up while working in Havana and Singapore?”

“Genji mentioned that he would join us when the time is _right_ , whatever that means. He said and I quote ‘Our paths cross for now. As to the future, we shall see.’ He never confirmed that he would join.” Oh yes, there was _the_ Genji, _the new_ Genji, the man he had no idea about. Last time he saw him in Hanamura, he was mumbling some religious mumbo jumbos, all about peace and tranquillity. The recall was going _great_. “There is Lúcio Correia dos Santos, as well.” Winston adds thoughtfully.

“The DJ? You can’t be serious.” He scoffs.

“The opposition he led hindered Vishkar operatives’ advances towards Rio. They planned to destroy the entire neighborhood to build something akin to the Utopaea they have in India.”

“They had the element of surprise against them, not actual skills. He is very young, it doesn’t sound right.”

“I’ve talked to him, McCree. He is a capable and a talented young man. He wants a chance, and he deserves that we give him one.” Despite Winston’s reassurance, Jesse knows that they are desperate for recruits. Anyone would do, at this point.

“Fine.” He sighs. “You’re the boss.”

“Err… I… well…” There he comes back, the stammering fool. “Thank you, McCree.” Winston say quietly and it takes him by surprise.

“What for?” he asks in incredulously.

“Your… your faith in me. Not many have been… taking me seriously as the leader.” God, he was getting guilt tripped, wasn’t he? Not that the monkey did it self-consciously, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

“You’re a clever one, Winston. I’m sure you will lead them to the best of their abilities.” He cringes slightly at the awkward compliment.

“You won’t join?” Tracer sounded disappointed, if not devastated and she always managed to make anyone who upset her to feel like they kicked a puppy. It was an unfair weapon. He wasn’t drunk enough for this, yet, he was too drunk for this.

“It’s nothing against Winston… I joined Overwatch because I had a debt to pay to Reyes, and I paid it fair and square. Coming back would bring back things I’ve been fighting the past few years. I’m… I’m not ready for that yet.” He sighs, he doesn’t know why he bared his soul for them. They didn’t need to know that he had issues.

“I understand, McCree. I appreciate your honesty with us.” Winston sounds truly sincere and Jesse doesn’t know what to do with the feeling it causes. “I will try my best to lead this organisation to complete fruition.” He clears his throat awkwardly and Jesse feels an involuntary smile creeping his lips at the characteristic nervousness of the monkey. “Back to business. What is the estimated time of attack?”

Jesse closes his eyes, recalling the entire information sheet. “Two weeks from now, Wednesday, approximately between 20:00 to 24:00.” He recalls smoothly.

There was the faint gasp of Tracer from the other side of the line and the thoughtful hum of the monkey. “It’s the anniversary of the MEKA pushing back the Gwishin completely for the first time, seems kind of fitting.” He hums. “They have special festivities to celebrate the occasion.”

“But there would dozens of people out there! They will be all in danger!”

“That’s why we’re going to stop them, miss Tracer.” He rolls his eyes.

“We are at disadvantage when it comes to the numbers, so we need to form a firm plan. Are you with us in this, McCree?” Winston speaks rapidly as he taps away on the keyboard.

“Yeah, count me in.”

“I happen to know you were trained as a sniper, and that your skills are decent, to put humbly. Can you pose as sniper in the next mission?”

“Afraid not. If I act like a sniper, Lacroix would start a sniper war against me, and while I was good, I’m rusty. She will have the upper hand.” He scratches his beard in irritation, throwing away the cigar carelessly.

“We need a sniper or they will dominate the fight. Even rusty skills are better than nothing.” The typing increases and he wonders if Winston started to write a full article on the matter. He was right, though, they needed a sniper at the very least, and Jesse was always second best when it came to Captain Amari. He was one hell of a crack shot with a revolver; but when it came to an actual sniper rifle, he didn’t have the enough patience to endure it. Lacroix beat Ana in the sniper war, and that’s pretty telling how it would go if Jesse wanted to go against her. He could use some of his good old tricks to wipe out half of the Talons, but he knew that the team would fight better when they know there was someone to watch their back. He opens his bag.

“We can’t do this half way. I know couple of snipers in underworld.” He picks his ratty notebook, checking the names of some people written in the back of it. People he worked with, people he tolerated, people who owed him a favour or two. Still, most of them would be dead before they even pick their rifle against Lacroix. A name stands out and he feels a wicked smirk splaying on his lips. “Oh, I know one alright. Someone owes me a favour.”

“Really?” Winston sounds relieved.

“Yeah, leave it to me. I’ll provide the sniper.” He closes his notebook, putting it back in his bag. He contemplates if he should call Genji himself or should he leave it to Winston. He decides he doesn’t know this new Genji and it would be better if Winston did it. “Talk to the Korean government and try to get a hold of Genji. If he says no, tell him the he owes me, he’ll get it.”

“He owes you?” Winston mumbles back quizzically. Jesse sight and rubs his temples.

“Yeah, it’s kind of personal, but he’ll get it. If I want to get to Korea properly, I better go radio silent and stay undetected. I would have called him, otherwise.” Lies, but it will do.

“Alright. See you in two weeks’ time. It was a pleasure talking to you McCree. Please inform me when you will break radio silence so we can cooperate in planning a scheme for attack.”

“Sure.” Not really. “And Winston?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t do Morrison and Reyes. Do you. Maybe Overwatch would run better with a scientist around.” He hangs up, not letting the monkey to say anything. He sighs and buries his face in his hands, feeling slightly mortified, because the phone call ended up being more sentimental than he liked. He’ll never live down the fact he tried to comfort Winston. He falls back and uses his bag as a pillow, then opens the text app. He shoots a quick text to the potential sniper.  

|rmmbr whn yu siad yo u owed me a favr?

The answer is immediate which takes him by surprise. Wasn’t it midnight? Then again, this guy had unusual hours.

Are you drunk?|

He scoffs and grumbles under his breath. Again, with the insulting. Always with the insulting. Insufferable bastard.

|no. remnbrr favor?

Yes?|

|need hlep

Obviously.|

He snorts, the guy is still as sassy as ever.

|rude

|taln in bsan. 2werk.

Fairly well.|

|wtch out

|past ghsts

He frowns as the comm doesn’t receive any more messages. Then again, he imagined the other man to be angry with him. Still, he hoped that he would get over it. He decides to write another text to enquire further about the other man. He tries to focus on the letters but his visions swims and everything looks like a jumbled mess. He is exhausted, he is still drunk to some extent and he hadn’t been sleeping properly in ages. He can barely keep his eyes open. He rubs his face, barely suppressing the yawn that cracks his jaw open. He puts the comm, he could always text the man tomorrow.  With that being decided, he huddles under his serape, curling into a small ball and lets the sleep consume him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I can update this more regularly. :')


	3. The Man Behind the Mask

If you asked Lena Oxton who Jesse McCree was, she would get that particular thousand-yard stare before cheerfully describe him as such:

A complete sweetheart, utterly genuine, absolutely charming and lovely. Maybe, flirts a bit too much. That combined with his somehow rugged look made him quite a charmer (or so she was told.)

Of course, she just mentions the things she knows everyone else would mention about the resident cowboy, preferring to keep some other details to herself. Yes, McCree was all of the things people mentioned about him, but the man had a much deeper personality hidden behind his sweet and amicable behaviour. A metaphorical mask, which he always had on, never showing his true colours or emotions, to appear as harmless as a cuddly teddy bear (The term Dr Ziegler used to describe him, she wouldn’t describe him as such. Lt Reinhardt was a cuddly teddy bear; McCree was as cuddly as a grizzly bear. Cute, but deadly.)

He was always one of the members which Overwatch loved to talk about, because Overwatch can’t be a regular organization unless it had its gossiping agents and workers. McCree was an interesting subject, hence they talked about him often. His close relationship with commander Reyes, his chivalrous behaviour towards women, the ever-existing tension among him and the strike commander, his impeccable, impossible accurate aim, and the last but not least, his tattoo.  

The tattoo on his left arm was one of the hottest topics for gossiping when he was the subject. Many said it was for his bad boy aesthetic look, others believed it was because he actually was a part of that infamous gang in America. Those who believed the latter had several speculations about McCree’s origins. Some believed that his difficult upbringing forced his hand to join the gang, others were certain that the gang took him in exchange for monetary favours from his parents. There was no way that McCree would join such a notorious group. He was anything but a gang material.

Still, Lena stood to her point: McCree was as harmless as a cuddly grizzly bear. (She wasn’t sure that grizzly bears would cuddle, but the point stands.)

How did she know that despite most people working with him seemed to be oblivious about that fact? She saw his mask slip off more than one occasion, and she saw it slip off on the very first day she met him. After all, their first meeting was memorable.

 

***

 

It was another day she was trapped in the chronal stabilizing room, absolutely bored out of her mind. Being dissociated with time and space was not as bad as being trapped inside a facility with dozens of scientists poking and observing her. It made her all shades of uncomfortable. The only one she actually liked was Winston. She was shocked when she first met him, because honestly, who wouldn’t be shocked seeing a talking gorilla going on chronal dissociation for hours and forming brilliant theories? When commander Morrison said that Winston would be in charge of helping her get out of her ethereal phase, she had her own doubts, which was quite fair, she believed. But the more she talked to Winston and the more he opened up to her the more she realised how absolutely wrong she was. She became friends with him quickly and looked forward to their sessions together. The other person she looked forward to see was Dr Ziegler. She was serious and professional, but she was kind and took care of her and tolerated her when sometimes the desperation and the isolation felt too much. She understood that she was frustrated, and she helped her to overcome her mood swings.

She was used to sitting alone all day, so when she hears the door slide open, she perks up to check who was there from her glass panel. She sees two men talking to each other, one of them incredibly young and bashful, maybe his early twenties? The other man was…

She did a double take, rubbing her eyes a bit just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

Was that a _cowboy_? Were they even _real_? She thought they only belonged in movies. She feels her jaw drop a bit but quickly controls herself. It was unbecoming and rude to act as such. The man was a cowboy, there was nothing wrong with that.

People can be anything they want, Lena, you know that better than anyone else.

“The Ammos should be replaced in storage C, and the training room could use another punching bag. We had a tragic accident that made our current punching bag… a bit out of commission.” The cowboy smiles at the other man and the young man nods as he writes down the notes. “Is that all?”

“No, Mr McCree, sir. There’s a meeting at 17:00 that commander Reyes wants you to attend.” The young man clutches his clipboard tightly, holding it against his chest carefully.

“Just McCree is fine, darling.” The cowboy honest to God winks at the boy, who flushes and looks down bashfully. “Tell Commander Reyes that I’ll be there.”

“Y-yes sir…” The boy quickly rushes out and walks, trying to hide his embarrassment from his obvious crush. The cowboy chuckles softly and shakes his head, then leans against the wall, closing his eyes. He covers his face and lets out a long breath and by the time the man brings his hands down, Lena is shocked with how raw and tired the other man looks. He takes of his hat and runs his hands through his hair, looking kind of lost and Lena felt her heart clench at how intense the other man’s despair looked. That’s why she couldn’t help it when she blurted out:

“Are you alright, luv?”

The other man jumps like a cat and if it wasn’t for how concerned Lena felt about him, she would have laughed at the open shock on his face, as if he was a deer caught in headlights. He quickly recovers and puts his hat on and by the time he raises his head again, there was an easy grin gracing his features, as if the previous rawness the man felt was a fickle of her imagination. It nearly gave her a whiplash.

“Yeah, mighty fine! Sorry to bother you, young lady.” He tips his hat and beams at her. “Didn’t know this room was occupied.” He says smoothly, dragging his words in a strange accent which Lena found pleasing. She chuckles awkwardly, not sure how to react after that sudden change.

“It’s alright!” She chuckles nervously. “It’s not like too many people know that I’m here.” And getting to this facility required higher clearance, according to Winston. That made her wonder what post the cowboy occupied that allowed him to stroll in the room freely as if he owned the place. Probably one of the commanding officers? She tries to hide her nervousness and smiling pleasantly at the other man. His smile fades as he looks more closely at Lena.

“I don’t want to come off as rude, but why are you trapped in that container, if you don’t mind me asking?” He asks tactfully, avoiding to mention that she was as good as a scientific specimen.

“Oh, I’m… well, I have constant dissociation with time and space… and this is the most stable arena they could hold me at…?” she licks her lips nervously, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Oh. You’re the Slipstream pilot.” His eyes widened with recognition. Again, no one knew about her incident but the higher ups, which meant the cowboy was one of the leading officers if he was informed about her condition. She nods, cringing slightly, bracing herself for false words of reassurance and the pitying looks and tall promises of making everything up to her.

“Man, that sucks, ain’t it?” she wasn’t expecting that. Nor did she expected the dirty look the man gave the room she was trapped in. “It’s not even a fancy place to be trapped 24/7. You must be bored out of your mind.” He raises his eyebrows and looks at her. “I know I’d be. I’d scream murder after day two. You’re a tough one, lady.”

“Thank you...?” She was still confused about the entire thing. The man acted differently than any other visitor she had up until now. Most just were either emotionless and professional, or pitying and reassuring.

“Think nothing of it.” He waves his hand. “It was quite a mess, your incident. A very costly mistake by our _competent_ scientists.” He rolls his eyes. “Pretty sure the meeting I have to attend with Reyes is about some budget cuts, but it was all worth it to see Morrison as red as a bright tomato.” He snickers.

She blinks. “Commander Morrison…?”

“Yup! The very man himself! Jack F. Morrison. You should have seen his face when he got the news of the plane’s disappearance mid meeting. It was the first time I heard him to curse that colourfully. A true character development!” He giggles, then sets his face stern and grim looking, with slightly panicked undertone. “ _WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE PLAN JUST FUCKING DISAPEARED?! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WE SPENT ON THAT?! WHAT THE FUCK SHOULD I SAY TO THE PILOTS’ FAMILY, OH SORRY, YOUR LOVED ONE DID A VANISHING ACT?!”_

She looked with shock as the other man did an exact impression of Jack Morrison, The Jack Morrison, the strike commander of Overwatch, and he got everything to the point, the accent, the tone, the facial expressions. She couldn’t help but burst into a fit of giggles that had her double over. She wheezed as she tried to wipe the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. The other man looked so pleased with himself, grinning widely.

“Jack F. Morrison?” She asks breathlessly. “What does the F. stand for?”

“Fucking. Jack Fucking Morrison.” They both start laughing again, the cowboy leaning against the glass panel for support. He took a long breath.

“Oh, where is manners. The name is McCree. Jesse McCree.” He tips his hat with a wink, smiling widely.

“Oxton, Lena Oxton. Code name Tracer.” She does a mock salute with her left hand which sends them to another fit of laughter.

“Are you really a cowboy?” she asks after she can take some breath.

“Yup. The genuine article, I assure you.”

“In Overwatch?” She raises an eyebrow.

“There’s literally a talking monkey working in the organization, and you’re so shocked to see a cowboy?” He sounds amused, smirking slightly.

“You mean Winston? He’s a gorilla.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” He waves his hand and turns back look when he hears the door slides open and Dr Ziegler gets in while being engrossed with the documents she was holding. She looks up and startles when she sees McCree standing there.

“Jesse? What are you doing here?” She frowns a bit, looking at the other man with confusion.

“Howdy, doc. Seem I got lost, and I had the pleasure to meet the lovely miss Tracer her.” He smiles and puts his hands on his belt, standing calmly.

“Jesse, you’ve been here for years, you know this base like the back of your hand. How did you get lost?” She sounds exasperated and confused, but there was a fond smile on her face, as if she was used to the other man’s antics.

“Well, you know how it is. Reyes gives me so much works that I end up seeing everything upside down.” He shrugs.

“Maybe if you didn’t miss your already late medical evaluation, this wouldn’t have been the case.” She puts her hands on her waist, clutching the clipboard against her hips. “Maybe if you cut down those cigars, you’ll have clear enough head to see what’s in front of you.” She chided him good-naturedly.

“Hey now! That’s harsh!” He pouts. “There’s only a single vice that I indulge in and you are compelling me to leave it!” He gives her puppy eyes which doesn’t faze doctor Ziegler at all.

“The _only_ vice? Let’s see: Alcohol consumption, unhealthy eating habits, irregular sleeping cycles and constant sleepless nights induced by Reinhardt’s coffee.” She counts them on her hands and then looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “The list goes on, shall I continue?”

McCree blushes and rubs the back of his neck while smiling sheepishly. “Aww, come on. Don’t embarrass me in front of miss Tracer.”

“Maybe next time you’ll remember to come to your evaluation, you know desperate times call for desperate measures.” She teases him good naturedly. “How about you stay here and let me do it for you after I finish with Lena?”

McCree takes out his comm device and whistles. “Would you look at the time, I guess we should put a rain check on our little date, doc.”

“Jesse…” Dr Ziegler says with a slight frustration in her tone.

“I have a meeting with Reyes on 17:00 sharp.” He shrugs. “You know how he chews me out when if I was late.”

Her lips twist in displeasure and she nods, agreeing with him begrudgingly. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Just peachy, trust me, darling.” He tips his hat and then looks at Lena. “It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, miss Tracer.” He smiles gently. “I’m glad you could make it out alive, a human life is not easily retrievable.”

The statement was so simple, but incredibly genuine that it made tears prickle her eyes. “Thank you.” She smiled wobbly. McCree’s face softened and he nodded. He walks towards the door and does a little bow in a theatrical way. “Adiós, my ladies.” He leaves and the door slides close behind him.

“I’m sorry about that, Jesse likes to push his nose in everything. Too much curiosity, you know?” Dr Ziegler chuckles fondly. Lena wonders if she should tell her that he didn’t stumble upon her room because of curiosity, he just needed a place to take a breather from his duties. She decides that she wouldn’t be nosy and Mr McCree would tell Dr Ziegler when time is right.

“He’s a nice man, better than some of your associates.” Dr Ziegler nods in agreement, looking at the door.

“He’s a peculiar man, a chronic flirt, an absolute nightmare on field and one of the best field agents of Overwatch. He’s unnecessarily reckless, coming with terrible injuries, that is if he ever shows up to the medical ward after a mission to let me patch him up. But… he has a heart of gold. He cares too much.” She blinks and looks at her, frowning slightly. “Why am I telling you this?”

“I’ve been told I’m easy to talk to.” She grins easily.

“I supposed you’re right. Shall we start our session?”

 

***

 

She didn’t get to see McCree until she became an active agent in Overwatch, on her very first mission to be exact. Apparently, McCree was there to collect intel to make their mission smoother in action and they could run the operation without getting any unpleasant surprises. After they finished releasing the hostages from the Null Sector, they were prepared to go back to the base to give their reports, and Commander Morrison reassured her that afterwards she could go back to London and visit her family. When they got to the dropship, McCree was standing there, leaning against the doorway, his eyes twinkling in with joy, a big grin stretching his lips, a cigar burning sluggishly at the corner of his mouth. His tac gear was bit worse for the wear, and he looked a bit battered and bruised, but it couldn’t diminish his bright smile.

“Well done, agents! You set them all blazing!” He takes out his cigar and kills it against the door, which earns a curse from their pilot.

Lt Reinhardt laughs loudly. “You missed the best part, McCree! It was such an epic fight! Crushing all those extremist omnics with my hammer never stops being satisfying, ha!” He pats the back of McCree who gets jostled forward, but gains back his footing with a practiced ease.

“I’m sure it was _glorious_.” He rolls his eyes, but the smile still on his lips. “We were mostly worried that Torbjörn’s bomb letting us down. I’m still not sure how that was a bomb.”

“It worked, didn’t it?! Stop questioning my creations!” Torbjörn snaps at him and the younger man raises his hand and laughs, which gives the engineer even sourer mood, mumbling about lack of respect to elders. McCree chuckles and looks at her, nodding slightly.

“Hello again, miss Tracer.”

“Hiya!”

“It was your very first mission as an official Overwatch agent. How did that treat you?” He looked her up and down, checking for injuries. She smiles, doctor Ziegler was right. He was a sweetheart.

“It was great. Honestly, I was a bit worried! You know first mission, at my home place and everything was depending on us, but somehow, we pulled it through, which makes me super happy! It was thanks to the information you gathered that we could work this out, Mr McCree.”

“Just McCree is fine, and you’re welcome. I was just doing my job.” He pats her shoulders and goes to sit on the sofa near the table. She frowns, wanting to tell him that he should drop the formality too, but she gets distracted by the look of shock on the other members of her team. Lieutenant and the Engineer to be exact.

“What?” She and McCree ask at the same time.

“It must be the end of the wold if you didn’t flirt with the young lass in front of you.” Torbjörn says with a shocked look on his face.

“It is strange indeed, my friend.” Lieutenant’s face mirrored the engineer’s expressions. McCree rolls his eyes and throw his head back, sighing exasperatedly.

“Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes can tell she’s batting for the other team.” He looks at them unimpressed. “We can tell the world is safe if you two are back to gossiping.” Despite the chiding, his tone is friendly, fond even. Still, she feels her jaw drop a bit. She didn’t speak of her orientation to anyone. How?

“How did you know!?” She asks him loudly, her tone rising slightly.

“Kind of obvious?” He raises a single eyebrow. “I mean you’re the most textbook case lesbian I’ve seen, to be honest.” He shrugs easily. The pilot groans and turns to look at them.

“Do you mean that I owe you money, McCree?! Goddamn it!” She grumbled, starting the engines.

“Ain’t my fault, Fio. Told you I’m never wrong about these things, darling.” He chuckles.

“You’re a menace.” She growls under her breath. Everyone looks at them with confusion.

“Blackwatch tradition. We always run some betting pools, helps with the stress of daily life.” Lt Reinhart and Torbjörn look at each other while Dr Ziegler gives McCree a look of disapproval.  He tries to wave it away with a smile when his comm goes off, and his face falls slightly, a dark look coming to his face and then quickly disappearing, going back to his lazy smile. He takes out his comm and flashes it in front of them. “Look who it is! I have to go and give my report.” He tips his hat and goes to the secluded area in the back. The team slowly settles on the chairs, closing the seatbelts. The two elder man sat next to each other while the she and doctor Ziegler sat on the chair opposite to them. McCree soon came back and instead of sitting on the safety chairs he lied down on the sofa. The pilot glared at him.

“McCree…” There was a slight warning in her voice.

“I need a siesta.” He shrugs.

“For the love of God, you know it’s against the-. “ She throws her hands up.

“I said, I _need_ a siesta, Fio.” He smiles at her easily, but his eerily calm voice and the hard look in his eyes sends a chill down Tracer’s spine. The pilot purses her lips and nods.

“It’s not my fault if you end up with a concussion.” She warns good-naturedly, her frustration melting away quickly.

“’course not, sweetheart.” He blows her a kiss and settles his hat on his eyes. Lena didn’t miss the tightness around his eyes, or the way his mouth got pulled down in a frown just before he lowered his hat.

It made her wonder who was behind that pleasant mask that McCree always wore.

 

***

 

She saw McCree more often after that, running all around the base, checking supplies, training some recruits, signing paperwork. When she asked about his status from Dr Ziegler, whether he was one of the commanding officers, she just shook her head.

“No, he isn’t. No one is sure what he is, specifically, but we can safely say he’s Commander Reyes’ right-hand man. Commander Reyes trusts him with his life. They fight a lot, but they care deeply about each other.”

Commander Reyes was a great enigma himself. She often saw him with McCree talking rapidly about something in some foreign language and switching language after a while unconsciously, as if they wanted to express themselves in a way that only that specific language allowed them. It was a bizarre sight, and she would have thought it was just for showing off if it wasn’t for how engrossed they always seemed when they talked to each other.

Commander Reyes was also what people might call the _cooler_ commander. He was rather easy going, scolding the recruits good-naturedly and encouraging them to try harder next time. Whereas, commander Morrison was more intimidating and demanding perfection. She liked them both, but she found herself more partial to commander Morrison, despite his stricter mannerism. Maybe it was because he dotted on her a lot, maybe it was because he sent them to London to face the Null Sector after she talked to him, but she knew she had a big admiration for him. He kind of reminded her of her father, a traditionalist British man, strict and hard, but no less kind.

Still, she found herself to be fascinated by Blackwatch crew. They were loud lots, absolutely bonkers and fun at parties and the most laid-back agents in Overwatch. They seemed to always looking for a way to cause mischief since they were bored out of their mind with being suspended. Despite that, McCree seemed to be always busy, the curse of being in the higher chain of command, she mused. She noticed how it was slowly taking its toll on him. He was still sweet and caring towards everyone, but there was a level of frustrated energy radiating of him all the time. His fingers would twitch, he couldn’t stand still for a long time as if aching to get his next hit. Not being an active agent and filling paperwork seemed to be setting his limit. She wondered belatedly if everyone noticed these changes, or she was the only one.

She was sitting in the cafeteria eating some indulgent breakfast made by lieutenant Reinhardt, delicious fluffy pancakes with a divine syrup. She held back a wince as she drank the coffee. No wonder the older man was so hyper active all the time. The coffee was strong enough to raise the dead. She sighs and adds lots of sugar and cream to the coffee, trying to make it more tolerable. She heard McCree’s voice and looked up, seeing him standing with one of the cadets, looking through some papers. Since the pillar was obscuring her somewhat, she didn’t think they could see her, but she had a good view on both of them.

“Couldn’t commander Reyes take care of this? This needs certain clearance levels beyond mine.” He smiles thinly at the girl, who bit her lip and batted her eyelashes.

“Umm… I’m terribly sorry, Mr McCree, but commander Reyes is unavailable and he said that I should come to you whenever he isn’t in the watchpoint.” She smooths back her hair looking at McCree shyly. Lena almost wanted to laugh since McCree looked so done, either with the girl, or the fact that commander Reyes wasn’t on base.

“That so? Ok, sweetheart.” His eyebrows twitch slightly as he hears a little squeal from the girl. Lena snorts from her seat, watching the scene unfold with a newfound interest. “Can you give me a pen?” He asks and opens his hand, demanding it while he was skimming the paperwork again. The girl fusses and gives him the pen shyly. He barely spared her a glance as he signs all the papers, then he looks up at her and showing the most fake grin that Lena ever witnessed in her life. “There you go, doll. All done!” The tone sounds sweet and cheerful, but she can feel the sarcasm dripping from it. The girl squeals louder this time and uses the paperwork to cover her face as she quickly walked away. McCree’s face goes back to blank uninterested face, sighing deeply. He quickly picks the comm and started a call, waiting patiently for the other person to pick up.

“Can you tell me the next time you plan to leave the base, _please_?” He sneers at the other person, who was probably commander Reyes. “I was this far from shooting the girl who came and ask me to sign papers _you_ should sign.” He listens to the other person than growls. “No, Gabe, it’s not okay. It was Rita.” He makes a noise of affirmation. “Yes, that Rita.” He huffs with annoyance. “Don’t laugh! It’s not funny! She’s coming on too strong and that’s coming from _me._ ” He rubs his face. “Why are you out anyway? Mission?” he makes a noise of surprise. “You’re with _him_? Why didn’t you tell me?” There’s a long-suffering sigh. “Gabe, seriously? Dios mío, you’re ridiculous. I will tell the girls all about it.” There’s a big grin on his face. “Next time I will have a day off as well, or our deal is off.” He chuckles softly, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’ll cover for you. No, I will not tell Morrison.” He rolls his eyes. “Of course, you have a _special_ mission.” He smiles fondly. “Ruffle the hair of that brat for me, okay? Have fun!” He kills the line and sighs, the little smile still lingering on his face, but it was mixed with another emotion, something akin to a sense of longing.

She pretends to be pouring extra maple syrup on her pancake as she sees him walking in the cafeteria. He looks startled when he sees her, then narrow his eyes in suspicion. She just grins widely and waves at him innocently.

“Hi!” She says chipper as ever hoping her tone doesn’t carry the nervousness she feels.

“Howdy.” He smiles back, looking nonchalant, but his eyes were still keen, which makes Lena even more nervous. She decides a change in tactics, and avert the other man’s attention from dissecting her with his eyes.

“Did you have breakfast? Lieutenant Reinhardt prepared it!” She points at the remaining pancakes and the pot of coffee. McCree perks up when he sees the coffee. He picks a pancake and adds some syrup on top, eating it like a pizza.

“Reinhardt is a godsent.” He mumbles appreciatively as he pours a big mug of coffee. Before Tracer could warn him that it was too strong, he knocks it back like a shot and drinks the whole thing in one go. She winces at the sight, remembering the bitter, acrid taste.

“Are you… okay?” She asks him with a slightly high voice. He chuckles, waving his hand dismissively.

“Yeah, fine. Just couldn’t sleep well last night is all.” He shrugs, pouring more coffee. Lena can’t help but to flinch.

“Maybe you should cut down the coffee, you know. It messes with your biological hour.” She looked in horror as he finished the second mug, pouring the third.

“It’s not the coffee keeping me awake at night.” He mumbles under his breath, and she’s sure she wasn’t meant to hear it.

“What was that?” She asks, because McCree having night terrors seemed unlikely. He didn’t seem to be burdened with anything but too much paperwork. That and constant disagreement with commander Reyes.

“I said you’re probably right.” He grins but it ends up looking like a grimace. “But not today! I have double paperwork to do.” He sips his third cup and picks the coffee pot, to Lena’s horror, and takes it with him. He stops then glances back at her, his eyes flashing with something. She swallows thickly.

“Oh, and Miss Tracer?” He asks lightly, which causes her more anxiety.

“Y-yes?”

“You should make your relationship status more public, because once she gives up on me, she will haunt you. You saw how she is; you wouldn’t want that.” He winks, his grin widening as she flushes with embarrassment at being caught. She nods hiding her face and McCree having the audacity to laugh, walks away, humming a tune under his breath, looking relaxed and happy-go-lucky to outside eyes.

 

Lena felt it was just a façade.

 

She turns out to be right, because later that night, she stumbles upon something else that she shouldn’t have been stumbled on. It was late, and she was missing Emily so dearly so sleep proved to be elusive. She gives up after an hour of tossing and turning in bed and get up to get a midnight snack. She sneaks outside and tiptoes to the kitchen, getting some leftover of the pizza they had and walking discreetly back to her room. She stops when she hears hushed shouting from the end of the corridor connecting to the kitchen. She stops, leaning against the wall, listening carefully.

“You lied to me!” Was that McCree? He sounded furious, nothing like what she always used to of him.

“You’re overreacting, Jesse.” That sounded like commander Reyes, which surprises her. She didn’t expect him to be back in the base so soon. He sounded calm and controlled, like always.

“ _Overreacting?!_ ” She hears McCree hissing at the other man. “I don’t know what goes through that head of yours, _Gabe_ , but whatever it is, it ain’t good.”

“What are you trying to say, _vaquero_? That you’re doubting my integrity?” She swallows thickly as commander Reyes sneers at the other man. The tone made shivers run down her spine. “Are you telling me how to do my job, ingrate?!” The older man growls, his icy timber makes the blood freeze in Lena’s vain.

“You know damn well that ain’t what I’m saying, stop beating around the bush.” McCree hisses back. “What’s going on, Gabe? Why are you trying to hide things from me with lies?” he sounds hurt which makes Lena feel her heart ache for him, especially since she knew they were supposed to be close. “I thought we were in everything together.” The words were uttered with such sincerity that rang loud in the corridor with the raw emotion behind them, despite how soft they were spoken.

“There’s nothing going on, _McCree_.” The way the commander said his name was as if he was addressing someone in a much lower rank, there was no hint of the close friendship she heard about. “Everything is just fine. Go and get some sleep, you look like shit.” Commander Reyes snaps and she starts hearing his heavy footfalls that was approaching the kitchen. She felt a cold dread settling in her heart, fearing what the other man may do to her if he caught her eavesdropping. She held her breath, her mind thinking of thousands of scenarios to avoid being caught, cold sweat settling on her body. She nearly goes through a heart attack when she hears the second set of footsteps walking hurriedly after the trail of the commander and both come to an eerie stop, as if McCree held the other man from walking any further.

“You’re not on your own, asshole! Stop acting as if you are!” McCree growls and then there’s a sickening voice of a punch and something, or rather someone, hitting the wall hard. Then there’s a heavy voice of an impact to the floor and Lena uses that opportunity to sneak out through the top kitchen island and to her room. She can’t stop her rapid breath when she gets there, nor the clinging dread of the possible fight that is occurring in the kitchen corridor. She goes under her covers, her slice of pizza forgotten on her desk, willing herself to forget that chilling conversation and the fight that followed it. She screwed her eyes shut, praying to get some sleep.

 

She sleeps at four a.m.

 

Next morning, she barely drags herself to the cafeteria. Dr Ziegler notices her fatigue and walks up to her with concern written down her features.

“Lena, are you alright? You don’t look very well rested.” She purses her lips as she checks her face for possible symptoms. Lena wonders what she should answer her.

“Just a bit homesick, is all. I miss Emily, haven’t seen her in ages.” She smiles warily. It wasn’t an entire lie, and by the way doctor Ziegler nodded empathically she knew it worked.

“Ah, homesick is something I can work with, unlike nasty battering and bruising.” She huffs in frustration, shaking her heard. “I will tell commander Morrison to assign a vacation for you. You’ve been working hard this lately, you deserve it.” She smiles gently at her. They both look up when they hear a soft hiss and uneven footstep walking into the cafeteria. It was commander Reyes much worse for the wear. He pours some coffee and sits with a groan on the chair, nodding his greetings at them warily as he picks up a tablet to read the reports while having his breakfast. He had a medical band bridge on his nose and several patches of band aid on bruised face. The bruise on his left cheek looked bad and Lena winces in sympathy. They all look when there’s another set of heavy footfalls and she sees McCree looking as bad as commander Reyes. He had a busted lip and his left eye was swollen shut and he walked as if he was in a great deal of pain, which probably he was. He sneers when he looks at the older man and the commander Reyes glares back.

“None of that here!” Dr Ziegler scolds them both sternly, and they cower a bit under her glare. “You’ve caused enough troubles last night.”

“It was just a round of sparring that went wrong, Angela. Jesse _doesn’t know_ when to stop pushing.” Commander Reyes says calmly, sipping his coffee. “You know his temper; you know how he can get.” He shrugs.

Angela looks at McCree with disapproval and McCree glares back at them both. He gets his coffee and bites a toast and starts walking out.

“That’s not a proper breakfast!” Dr Ziegler calls after him, but McCree keeps walking away without acknowledging her.

“She’s right. Eat something better.” Commander Reyes calls after him, reading his report to look nonchalant, but Lena could detect some lines of worry around his eyes as he glanced at younger man.

McCree stops in his tracks and looks back at him with an unreadable expression on his face. The he slowly raises his hand and makes a rude gesture and walks away as if nothing happened. Commander Reyes splatters and growls, ready to run after him if Dr Ziegler didn’t hold him back while trying to suppress her laughter.

“Damn ingrate.” Commander Reyes grumbles under his breath as he goes back to drinking his coffee.

 

***

 

No one saw it coming when the resident cowboy left for good.

 

Things have changed a lot in the Overwatch Headquarters. There was some argument between commander Reyes and Morrison, especially regrading their mission in Havana. They just found some lead to Maximillian and they hoped that it would help them to apprehend Doomfist, especially with the rising Talon activities. Captain Sojourn was confident with her intel, and she believed they could incarcerate Maximillian with the team she assembled. Still Commander Morrison had his doubts, and commander Reyes was slightly cynical when it came to this operation, and as a result, arguments happened on daily basis.

Captain Amari was no longer there to placate the tension among the two commanders, and her absence was felt more each day. Her death had devastated a lot of people, and a lot of quarrels were caused about the circumstances of the operation she was lost in and how it could have been prevented. It might have not been said out loud, but some of the people who were close to captain Amari blamed commander Morrison, especially McCree. He took it a bit too hard, since he never found a trace of her anywhere. After he came back, no one saw him for a week, because between practice range and his own quarters, McCree didn’t seem to go anywhere else, or try to talk to anyone else, for that matter. Dr Ziegler tried to coax him to come out but commander Reyes asked her to let him grieve on his own, since he knew that McCree didn’t appreciate her efforts.

Reinhardt was forcefully casted aside after a disastrous mission which still made Lena feel devastated about it, and Torbjörn refused to stay in a place where they turned their back on his best friend. He believed that the decision was unfair and that the commanders could have done better, but no wonder they were going through such a mess since captain Amari was not there to beat some sense to them. He was truly angry and some terrible words were exchanged among him and commander Morrison after the busted operation, before the engineer shouting that he wanted to quit and both him and lieutenant Reinhardt left immediately afterwards.

Genji left Blackwatch and joined Overwatch, a recommendation from McCree to commander Reyes. It was awkward at first, he wasn’t very friendly and he was extremely cautious around them, but slowly he warmed up to them, especially after captain Sojourn had a stern conversation with him. He still was remote and distant, brooding more often than not; but as time passed, he slowly became friendlier and talked to them more, even joked from time to time. Of all the mess that happened in Overwatch, this was one of the events that pleased Lena the most and she was so happy that McCree recommended that to commander Reyes. She asked him to join as well, while they were sitting in cafeteria grabbing some lunch. Dr Ziegler nodded enthusiastically and Genji gave a subtle nod. McCree smiled at the stiffly.

“Joining Overwatch? Nah. Not yet at least. Still got loads of unfinished business in our division, can’t leave that hanging.” He shrugged and took another bite of his food.

“It’s not like you don’t tag along in some missions, McCree. You just need to make it official.” Genji remarks as he points his fork at him. McCree sighs and shakes his head.

“It’s not _that_ easy, and I tag along because neither Morrison or Reyes want me around when I’m about to have a dying duck fit.” Genji’s lips quirk in corner and McCree looks equally amused.

“I hope no duck was harmed while you were expressing your anger.” Genji teases good naturedly and that earns a joyous laughter from McCree, both shaking their heads, smiling secretively at their inside joke. Lena knew that Genji didn’t like other Blackwatch members, and that was the main reason that McCree made that recommendation to Reyes to pull him out and send him to Overwatch. Still, Genji had a great deal of respect for McCree, and he talked to him often when he was in mood for talking. He always commented that McCree was an honourable man, quite understanding and a good company who respected people’s space. Just like Dr Ziegler, he always ribbed McCree about his smoking habits, and McCree always shrugged it off, saying that it was the only thing that kept him sane.

They worked seamlessly when McCree tagged along in their missions, like two parts in a well-oiled machine, watching each other’s back and trying to out manoeuvre the other, showing off in the middle of the battle. McCree was an impressive fighter, which you wouldn’t have expect him to be, what with only his revolver and nothing else. He was quite ordinary compared to the rest of them, not having any special time traveling capabilities, or the enhancement of a cyborg body, or the angelic miracle of raising the fatally wounded, still, he had his own presence in the field, and his aim was eerily spot on, always. He didn’t seem to miss, and the times that they thought he missed, it was to actually hit several targets with a chandelier or something similar. And the easy-going manner that he fought and the way he joked in the comms always reassured Lena that everything was going to be just fine. It bummed her out that McCree wasn’t going to tag along in their mission to Havana. They could hang around after the mission, enjoy the sun in that gorgeous city (she hoped the sun would come out after the nasty storm that was coming, and maybe ask captain Sojourn to fly Emily to the city so they could have that seaside vacation they always wanted.)

They were making the final preparation for the mission. Dr Ziegler was checking the status of Winston, Genji and Lena to make sure they were in the top condition for the mission. Lena was the last one left, and doctor Ziegler was making her last check up when the someone knocked the door.

“Come in.” Dr Ziegler said distractedly as she recorded the data on the holo-pad. The door opens and McCree pokes his head in, smiling sheepishly.

“Hey… you got any time for me? I want you to do an evaluation.” He walked in and took off his hat, ruffling his chestnut hair. It grew longer recently and it suited him well. They both were surprised to see him in the medical ward, asking for the medical evaluation _voluntarily_. Dr Ziegler huffed a bit and motioned for him to sit on the other cot.

“You’re lucky that I just finished with Lena and I’m no loner occupied with anyone else, but next time, tell me in advance.”

“Oh, I know, I have the devil’s own luck.” He smirks, and the way his eyes glinted with mischief told Lena that his convenient timing had nothing to do with luck. He _knew_ Dr Ziegler was going to be free and he choose the perfect time to drop in. Still, despite the smile and all easy-going manner, Lena couldn’t shake the feeling that something was _wrong_.

“Let me finish with Lena and I’ll be with you in a minute.” Dr Ziegler says as she enters the final set of data and closing the holo-pad.

“Much obliged.” He smiles, but it feels off kilter, not quite the smile she used to see on his face. He looked down at the hat in his hands, eyes a bit distant. He sobers up when Dr Ziegler talks to him again.

“I’m surprised you came here with your own feet, Jesse.” She teased him with a playful smile. “One might call it a miracle.” He laughs at her comment and shrugs.

“Come on doctor, I’m not _that_ bad.” Dr Ziegler nods.

“Yes, you’re the worst.” She laughs when McCree holds his heart as if he was shot, looking at her with mock horror.

“Darling! You wound me!” She chuckles and shakes her head, looking back at Lena.

“You’re good to go, Lena. Make sure to have enough rest and check with Winston for your chronal accelerator recharge. We can’t have anything less than our best performance!”

“Yes doctor!” She jumps on her foot and salutes McCree. “See you around, cowboy!” She blinks towards the sliding door.

“Hey, Lena!” She stops abruptly when she hears her name, looking back at McCree with slightly shocked expression. Never had he ever called her by her first name since her knew her. She turns around facing him fully. He smiles at her again, his smile laced with some weird emotion. Melancholy?

“Yeah?”

“Take care.” It rubs her the wrong way, despite how genuine it sounds. It feels off, and she can’t shake the weird feeling that she’s missing something important. The melancholy smile doesn’t look good on his face and it bothers her. Still, she brushes it off, assuming it was because the other man was in a rough patch lately. He and commander Reyes had regular fights, according to the gossips of the base, which had negative effects on both of them. She nods and grins widely at him.

“Will do!” She blinks away, trying to think nothing of it.

 

When they came back from the mission successfully, having captured Maximillian and coaxed him into cooperating with them, they realise the reason that either of the commanders were missing during the mission briefing was because one of the agents had gone MIA.

 

Agent McCree, to be more specific.

 

Commander Morrison demanded to send a search party for him, while commander Reyes shrugged it off and asked him to let it go, which in turn ended up in a nasty clash among the commanders. They hurled insults at one another and pointed out the faults in each other’s judgment. Morrison accused the calm acceptance of Reyes and how he was acting nonchalant towards the missing McCree, who his recruitment was a mistake to begin with.

That caused commander Reyes to snap.

“Well that’s pretty convenient for you now, isn’t it, Jackie?!” He snarled. “He’s gone and not coming back, and not because he wanted to let the organization down, because he was fed up with my shit! Consider him discharged! Wasn’t that what you always had wanted?!” He growls and leaves the main hall, leaving commander Morrison looking guilty and trying to dismiss the gathering agents. Dr Ziegler looks grim and upset, and Genji’s posture felt less enthusiastic.

“I knew something was off.” He mumbles quietly.

“What do you mean?” Dr Ziegler looks at him. “Did he say anything?”

“He came around the night before we went to the mission. He sounded off, more affectionate. Hugged me and wished me good luck for the mission.” He grows quiet. “Told me to go after my little bucket list. ‘You’re not getting any younger and what better time than go around explore the world?’” His voice sounds pained.

“Genji…” Dr Ziegler puts her hand on his shoulder.

“Why didn’t he just say that he wanted to leave? Why doing it now?” He growls in frustration. “Couldn’t he simply say goodbye like normal people do? Was he that much of a coward?!” He says bitterly and walks away in anger. Dr Ziegler looks at her and Winston apologetically and follows after him. Winton looks helplessly at Lena and she pats his back.

“It’s alright big guy, it’s not like we can help it.”

She wished they could.

 

***

 

After the recall, the last person she expects to contact them was McCree, not after he left Echo alone in route 66 and the poor thing had to find her way to them by herself. She was equally shocked as Winston when Athena announced that Jesse McCree was waiting to talk to them on the secured line which was only available through covert op comms. His voice sounded rougher, and his accent was thicker, and some of his words would get slurred together when he talked too quickly. She imagines he was slightly drunk, which makes her wonder if talking to them was that much horrifying to him that he’d rather not to do it sober. It had kind of hurt but she imagined he had his own reasons.

He was still charming, he still laughed, he still sounded like his usual gentlemanly self, but there was a darker edge to him. She wonders if it was always there and she missed it. He gave them a huge Talon lead which they’ve been struggling to get a hold of, he easily assessed the situation and provided solutions, taking the commanding role naturally, yet; he so quickly handed it back over to Winston as if taking the command would bring him plague. He hanged up immediately after he awkwardly gave a heartfelt advice, not even letting Winston to thank him for contacting them. Winston stares at the monitor, blinking rapidly, then he looks at her.

“Well, that just happened.” She says, chuckling awkwardly

“Yeah…” he frowns a bit. “It was nice, all things considered?” he sounds so unsure, looking at Lena for reassurance.

“Yeah. He wasn’t dismissive at least.” She says encouragingly. He nods smiling more confidently.

“He is nicer than I thought.” Winston says in some kind of awe. “He and commander Reyes were close, and commander Reyes didn’t like me all that much. I thought it would be passed to him.” he looks down at the keyboards. She pats his arm in reassurance.

“No one can hate you, big guy. You’re too sweet on everyone!” She tries to cheer him up. The scientist smiles, feeling a little bashful, chuckling softly.

“It’s a shame he doesn’t want to join, he is the most essential agent we could get a hold of.”

“What, even more than Dr Ziegler?!” She asks in astonishment.

“McCree was in Blackwatch, one of their top-ranking agents, if not the second in command. He and commander Reyes were attached from the hips, as the rumours told. Undoubtedly, he was privy of some delicate secrets and operations, if not some pass codes that give us access to the full data base to Overwatch archives. You’d think that Reyes would share the codes with him, seeing how many times he left him to command things on base or high profiled mission. He was his prodigy.” He points out, showing her the archives files which were encrypted and password protected. “We need the access to the archives to know what happened to Overwatch and what led to the incident in the Swiss headquarters. We can prevent some mistakes to be repeated again and start better next time if we studied those archives thoroughly, and we might even be able to get some information that could put Talon in compromising situation.” He sounded hopeful when he explained it to Lena, but he looks dismayed quickly. “But we can only achieve that if McCree gives us those codes.”

“Can’t we just break in to the system? Hack out the files?” She frowns at the screen, trying to make a sense of the codes and number that flushed through the screen.

Winston sighs shaking his head. “I tried to crack the code many times, but all my effort resulted in failure.” His face looked grim.

“It can’t be that secured, right? I mean, doesn’t Athena have the access to those files?”

“I’m afraid not, agent Oxton.” Athena chimes in. “Commander Reyes had strict measures against any kind of breach that might endanger Blackwatch files, and he was able to pass that paranoia to Commander Morrison. The personnel, resources, arms, financial status, bank accounts, and security files of Blackwatch are all encoded specifically so I would have no access to them, the same goes for Overwatch archives.” She explains briefly, and Lena could detect some tone of frustration from the AI.

You’d think that this paranoia would have been fruitful and keep the organization safe from any outside attacks or ambushes, but the was the point, wasn’t it? They were son engrossed with who might attack from the outside that they turned blind eyes to what happened from the inside. Overwatch was destroyed by its own hands, after all. The mutiny that Blackwatch led against the Overwatch members caused a fight in the building and one thing led to another and the next thing everyone knew, the building was blown to pieces. No one really knew how the mutiny started and who was the responsible, but according to the reports provided by the U.N. commander Reyes had rebelled against commander Morrison and their final feud led to the destruction of the organization.

It rang false to her, the report. Something was off about the entire thing.

The commanders weren’t hostile to one another, in fact, they were pretty close. She saw them drinking together more than one occasion, making jokes and walking back drunkenly to their rooms while stumbling into every wall they came across. The one time when they both got drunk after McCree left, commander Morrison murmuring gentle words to a devastated commander Reyes, reassuring him to the best of his capabilities. The exchange of the hushed words felt so intimate that Lena felt embarrassed to stumble upon them. Luckily, they never noticed.

She couldn’t believe that those two would destroy something they built and held to their hearts dearly.

She snaps out of her thought as the door slides open and they see Echo walking back in.

“Greetings, Winston, Tracer.” She smiles and nods at them both.

“Echo, it’s nice of you to join us. Any luck with decryption of the Blackwatch data base?” Winston looks at her hopefully. Echo bites her lips and shakes her head.

“I’m afraid not. The files are heavily encrypted and they contain multiple traps to dishearten the hackers. Whatever was in there, the commanders did not want us to have access to it.” She shakes her head ruefully. “Any luck with finding the next target of Talon?” Winston beams at her which makes her look surprised.

“Oh, plenty of luck! We know the location and the time of a near future attack.” He types deftly and shows her the results. Echo’s eyes widen, looking both impressed and curious.

“How did you get these results? Did you get access to one of their communication channels?”

“No, it was McCree who told us.” Winston says thoughtfully, the frown he had while talking with McCree coming back. “He had stolen the information from their operative, Sombra.”

“But wouldn’t they cancel the operation? If Jesse have discovered their target it’s very likely that they would abort the operation to avoid its failure.”

“It’s a window of opportunity they wouldn’t like to miss. It’s in time with Gwishin’s attack. We will not get any help from the local forces since they got their hands full to protect the celebrating people.” He points out. “We made a discreet bare bone plan so far, and have a team to execute it. I want you to stay here and monitor our movement and manage the whole operation. Lena and I will join McCree in Busan, hopefully, we’ll have Genji tagged along.”

“Which means that we have to call Genji. That would be an interesting call.” She huffs. Genji was different the last time she talked to him. He sounded more spiritual and calmer. She believed hanging around the Shambali monks did that people. That made a dull ache pang in her heart, especially when she remembers how she failed them when she let Mondetta die. She couldn’t save him and it always haunted her.

“Are you alright, Lena?” Winston looks at her with some concern, ever the worrywart sweetheart. She shakes off her sudden brood and puts on her brightest grin.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s do this!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the cursed chapter! I can't believe how long I've been editing and rewriting it. But I'm pleased with the results (for now at least) and I hope you enjoy reading it. Stay tuned for the next chapter!


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